Various encoding schemes are known for encoding integer-valued bitstreams, which bitstreams may represent, for example, videos, images, etc. The known encoding schemes generally involve run-length coding, variable-length coding, differential coding, and various combinations thereof.
It is known that run-length coding, while useful for compressing data exhibiting significant uniformity, is generally inefficient where data values are likely to differ from one to the next. In the latter situation, it is common among known compression schemes to adaptively switch between run-length coding and some other type of coding, which switching generally is handled in the decoder by side-information associated with the bitstream, or by calculation; this either reduces compression efficiency or increases the computational burden, respectively.
It is common among compression schemes that use both run-length and differential coding, to do the differential coding before the run-length coding, which ordering requires the encoder to calculate a difference, and the decoder to calculate a sum (i.e., to reconstruct the data value) for every data value in the bitstream.
Thus, it is desirable to use a coding scheme that can eliminate or at the very least mitigate these known limitations.